


A New Beginning

by litbynosun



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Autistic Pearl, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 20:16:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8115997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litbynosun/pseuds/litbynosun
Summary: Wherein Pearl runs away, realizes she wasn't as prepared as she thought she was, and finds out that that's okay.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I started a challenge for weekly short stories. Enter fanfic.

It was bright on this planet. It hurt Pearl’s eyes, the first time she stepped out into the starlight. 

She had reformed, reinvented herself. The number on her cheek was gone, and with it, her lack of identity, of autonomy.

She belonged to nobody. She belonged to herself.

Pearl took a step, then another, moving without being commanded to. She spun, her ruffled skirt whirling beside her. 

She was free. 

 …

She had stolen a set of tools and various other bits and bobs. The peridot she’d taken them from was cruel, anyway. Pearl felt the need to justify herself, still. It was an impulse left over from thousands of years of, “Explain yourself, Pearl 35982.”

“You know the rules perfectly well, and are expected to follow them,” whispered Pearl to herself, mimicking the precise cadence of the silica assigned to the 359 group. “You know the rules.” 

She did, and that was what made breaking them so gloriously uncomfortable.

She wondered whether they’d look for her. Nobody cared about a pearl, even one belonging to as high of a status gem as she was - as she had been. Nobody cared about a defective. But… they probably couldn’t stand a pearl who disobeyed orders, was actively disobeying orders, and was overall behaving in a very atypical way.

 …

She wanted to burst out into song, but didn’t know what she wanted to say.

She sucked her teeth instead.

That was breaking a rule too.

 …

She wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. She’d never had free time before, and didn’t know whether she should hide or could wander a bit. The planet was so … green. Pearl had never seen anything quite that color- quite _those_ colors.

Her tools were interesting, though.

She knelt under a large non-sentient rock formation and fiddled with her treasures, discovering that she could make lights turn on by connecting wires. She also simply built a tower, balancing wrench on round thing on rectangular thing. 

She should have stolen a guide to engineering as well, apparently.

 …

               She stood up, rose to demi pointe, then pointe, then stretched her arms up at the sky as her gem fizzed. She touched it, and …

               Something emerged, something fell into her hand, and she let it slide down her palm. 

               Pearls couldn’t summon weapons. But she glanced over, furtively, and saw that she had. 

               Pearl stood frozen for a long time, then struck a pose, with her spear held stiffly in front of her, back rigid, knees hyperextended and locked (breaking a rule!), head held high instead of bowed. 

               She took another step forward, clutching her spear like the fragile treasure it was. She took a step…


End file.
